Slow (Brown Sludge) Food

I started at Slow Food USA today! I can already tell that this is an awesome organization, too. How lucky am I to have found simultaneous internships at TWO organizations that make me so happy?! Slow Food USA's mantra is that food should be good, clean and fair for all. It's a membership-funded nonprofit that works on campaigns, symposiums, advocacy and other education-focused programs to promote "good" food in every sense of the word. This summer I'll be helping with their biannual magazine production. Today was a brief drop-in to meet the staff and get acquainted with the office; tomorrow will be more of a real orientation.

The Slow Food office is hidden in this building. Deceptively sketchy looking— it's actually really nice on the inside.

As I rode the subway home, I contemplated how happy I am to have coworkers with whom to debate the value of "organic" for an individual consumer, to bond over our shared disgust for high fructose corn syrup, and to admire each others' kale/quinoa lunches. I am quickly on the road to becoming a certifiable food snob, I thought.

Inspired by all this, I decided to go on a big grocery shopping trip when I got home and finally make one of the many vegan recipes I've gathered on Pinterest. I chose a simple peanut stir fry...

Supposed to look like this:

Turned out like this:

brown sludge yummm

Still not sure what went wrong. Maybe my peanut butter was too thick and my soy sauce too strong? It tastes okay, but now I'm worried about my coworkers judging me at lunch as they eat their colorful, dainty artisan salads :(

I think I'll save this for dinners and pack a sandwich for lunch instead.

(This link doesn't really make me feel better, because that stir-fry definitely belongs on the list: http://www.buzzfeed.com/rachelysanders/people-worse-at-cooking-than-you-food-fails)

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(The rest of this is boring)

Yesterday the nutrition education interns (myself included) had another meeting with Phil and then did more outreach work to recruit participants for our grocery store tours. We try to partner with community agencies so as to have better turnout on each tour, and part of my job is establishing those partnerships. So far I'm in touch with a senior center, a retirement home, a community center, a library and a school.

That evening I went to the Museum Mile Festival, where nine of NYC's most famous Fifth Avenue museums were free. Visited El Museo del Barrio (the Puerto Rican museum) and the Museum of the City of New York. Both were well-curated with interesting exhibits, but way too overcrowded.

Later I met up with a friend of Yasamin's for crepes! We met when he came to Chapel Hill for Yasamin's birthday last year but hadn't seen each other since then. It was great catching up and I'm sure I'll hang out with him more this summer.